Acceptable Behaviour….?

Hi hi hi!! Gosh, have I been slacking or what…? Nope, just busy, here and there, in the yoga room, out of the yoga room, in the sun, out of the sun…you get the drift.

This morning I was driving down to Cook St village to meet a friend for a walk along Dallas Rd (which, as an aside, is streaming with people walking their dogs…so, if anyone needs a dog walked, I noticed there are many handsome men along this route, I would be willing to take your dog for a walk…I think you are again getting my drift 😉 ) and have a tea before I had to head to to the yoga studio for advanced class. So, on my drive down, I noticed a woman walking down the street…well, she wasn’t walking, she was kind of waving her arms and doing what I deemed to be dancing. My first initial thought was “huh, inappropriate?”…and then I very quickly caught myself and thought “self expression”…which then got me to thinking…what is self expression and is revered for being care free and self expressed no matter where we are, and what is deemed inappropriate in the eyes of society? Where is the line drawn?

I started to think about things we call “inappropriate”…things like wearing something, ahem, ill-fitting or perhaps unflattering…not vulgar, just maybe not flattering. Then I imagined a person using a great deal of profane language in public, a mixed group of people all in ear shot. Or, how about a child who is picking his nose in public or a person dancing (as this woman was) to the beat of her own drum…

What is the factor of “inappropriate” in society and who decided this? Through conversation and discussion, we came to the conclusion of two things:
1) Do no harm. Meaning, if someone wants to wear very short shorts which may or may not be flattering on me and perhaps they show off a little cellulite or something then really what’s the harm? It’s not affecting anyone negatively. If she was to wear something which was clearly showing her “private parts” as in something very see through or low/high cut, then by the confines of the society we live in, this is inappropriate because this could cause “harm” to the people around (some people may be “wounded” not just offended by this…traumatized even?). If someone is yelling profanity, this can be harming to the people around, perhaps children in ear shot…perhaps it’s not physically damaging, but certainly can be emotionally damaging to some people.
2) We as a society have deemed what is appropriate in public by what we can and cannot handle. Example…in India there are many people who live in slums right along side of the road. These people live in a small area of ground and do everything they need to do in this one small space. They eat, they sleep, they cook, they poop…you see where I’m headed with this…? To them, and greatly in that society, that is acceptable behaviour. If someone dropped trow here in downtown Victoria and decided to relieve himself right there and then, he would be scorned and ostracized and probably arrested (I’m pretty sure that is illegal). This kind of behaviour is inappropriate in our society because we have built our communities to behave a certain way and nudity or other such similar things are seen as wrong here…that makes me think of all the other places in the world where the human body is celebrated and flaunted, not hidden like it is so often here in North America…but that is for another day 😉

So…what’s the point…? Not sure…just that I value people and their individuality, and while not wanting to squash anyone’s self expression, I also have been raised in a society where we have made up all sorts of rules of being based on what we can handle and what we think is a societal right or wrong. I, for one, encourage everyone to dance a little in the streets, laugh out-loud in the movies and sing to the musak we hear at the elevator…why not? If for nothing else, it will keep you, and the people who stare at you on the street, entertained!

OK, my loves, time to get out into the sunshine and soak up my vitamin D for the day.
Ciao puppies. Remember to never let yourself be squashed by someone else’s idea of what is right and wrong…these ideas are just ideas make up by someone who thought they were the boss…
Love,
Ida